Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast
Jul 14, 2026 · 1 hr 7 min · 16 segments
Can a diagnosis sometimes do more harm than good? Claire Sanderson and Gemma Atkinson are joined by consultant neurologist and bestselling author Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan to explore why more people are…
Suzanne O'SullivanGuest
Gemma AtkinsonHost
Claire SandersonHost
So Suzanne is a consultant neurologist, she's a best-selling author, and her latest book is called The Age of Diagnosis, where she explores medical labels and argues that as a society, we are over-diagnosing people, and it is causing potential harm.
She was so knowledgeable, and she faces a lot of criticism from people in her views and opinions on the, the medical world.
What she is highlighting in this episode is it's not an umbrella fix for everybody, and there's a lot of misdiagnosises, but there's a lot of diagnosises that didn't need to be highlighted, that sometimes it can make a person feel worse.
So she went through, like, an extensive list of what a doctor should be thinking about before offering someone a scan or before telling someone what they think they have as an ailment.
... and autism, yeah, and how so many people are diagnosed with cancer when it's not actually a cancerous cell.
She said things are being found inside our bodies that could remain there and cause, cause no harm-
But they are labeled as cancer when really what they are are, is abnormal cells.
Yet for every one person whose life is saved through cancer screening, 10 people needlessly have cancer treatment and-
She especially comes under a lot of flak from the autism community for her views on autism and ADHD.
She's not saying that ADHD and autism doesn't exist, but she argues that the parameter in which people are diagnosed has grown to such an extent, people are now being brought into the spectrum that needlessly should be there-
Um, it's, it's our job to bring different points of view, and she, and she has a different point of view.
And at first I was a bit skeptical when, when I read the notes on her, I thought, "Ooh, this will be interesting." But everything she said to me made complete sense.
If you have children or someone in your family who may be going through a diagnosis right now, uh, it's especially for you.
And please do like and share and subscribe as well, so we can get more wonderful guests on Just As Well.
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So Suzanne is a consultant neurologist, she's a best-selling author, and her latest book is called The Age of Diagnosis, where she explores medical labels and argues that as a society, we are over-diagnosing people, and it is causing potential harm.
She was so knowledgeable, and she faces a lot of criticism from people in her views and opinions on the, the medical world.
What she is highlighting in this episode is it's not an umbrella fix for everybody, and there's a lot of misdiagnosises, but there's a lot of diagnosises that didn't need to be highlighted, that sometimes it can make a person feel worse.
So she went through, like, an extensive list of what a doctor should be thinking about before offering someone a scan or before telling someone what they think they have as an ailment.
... and autism, yeah, and how so many people are diagnosed with cancer when it's not actually a cancerous cell.
She said things are being found inside our bodies that could remain there and cause, cause no harm-
But they are labeled as cancer when really what they are are, is abnormal cells.
Yet for every one person whose life is saved through cancer screening, 10 people needlessly have cancer treatment and-
She especially comes under a lot of flak from the autism community for her views on autism and ADHD.
She's not saying that ADHD and autism doesn't exist, but she argues that the parameter in which people are diagnosed has grown to such an extent, people are now being brought into the spectrum that needlessly should be there-
Um, it's, it's our job to bring different points of view, and she, and she has a different point of view.
And at first I was a bit skeptical when, when I read the notes on her, I thought, "Ooh, this will be interesting." But everything she said to me made complete sense.
If you have children or someone in your family who may be going through a diagnosis right now, uh, it's especially for you.
And please do like and share and subscribe as well, so we can get more wonderful guests on Just As Well.
